An Outside Perspective - How Toshihiro Kondo Leads Nihon Falcom

Ben has a lengthy chat with Nihon Falcom president Toshihiro Kondo about what it's like to lead a company and the tough decisions they have to make regarding beloved franchises. Nihon Falcom is the company behind long-running series like Ys and The Legend of Heroes.
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[@akiraguy]

NIHON FALCOM! LORD AND SAVIOUR OF JRPG!

[@suiken3149]

They are the gate keepers. Falcom certainly have solid games, but they lack the mainstream appeal to carry the genre on top. Atlus fits the description more since they are gaining more mainstream popularity.

[@GiordanDiodato]

nah that's Bandai Namco

[@andr0zzsenpai]

You mean Monolith Soft

[@ravencustodio9275]

Real man of great culture: I worship many gods.

[@BlueGrovyle]

@@suiken3149 There's a difference between lacking mainstream appeal and lacking mainstream popularity. I can only speak for myself, but having played a Falcom game, I've purchased and committed to playing several more; I'd argue that their popularity roadblocks have more to do with budgeting and the fact that so many of their games simply have yet to make it out of Japan. Nevertheless, I wouldn't use language like "lord and savior" to describe one of dozens of developer companies that create great games for the world to enjoy.

[@musingmojack8900]

It blows me away how well connected and real the world of Trails is. To hear that it was all planned from the very beginning has me extremely impressed. I never get enough of stepping into the continent of Zemuria and I'm dieing in anticipation for Cold Steel III or localizations of Zero and Ao. Fantastic job interviewing Ben, you just made my month!

[@timidalchemist8475]

Musing Mojack having a interconnected plot is hard to pull off especially when it's heavy on continuity in both lore and characters,the only one I can think of is steven universe(i know its not a game,but its a good show) and suikoden (minus other games not being connected)

[@KampaiSanta1999]

Damn right. Their world building for the trails series had been amazing, and so grounded on its story details. And shoutout to the localizations for Zero and Ao!!! They were like the missing link for that series!

[@Highwind452]

The world building in Trails really is impressive. I actually enjoy talking to all the NPCs because they all have their own little lives and stories going on.

[@MtMarshi]

Hi, I'm from the future. Cold Steel 3 is coming this fall!

[@Thuxo]

They're the best games in the series by far as well. Though, now I'm looking forward to post cold steel.

[@Fleetw00d]

THE PROFESSIONALISM. No, but seriously this is an amazing interview. Great job Ben!

[@tomsawyer5069]

He is very very good with his questions

[@zennvirus7980]

That, is one HELL of a CEO. Ben, you asked the right questions, and we thank you for it. Hope you keep on enjoying Falcom products, for they rock as hard as JDK. And to Kondo-san: what a career, you are one inspired individual, I, personally admire you, and can't wait to see what else you have in store for us, innocent, unsuspecting fans.

[@Feelin_DanDy]

Ys series is some of the best in the biz and has some of the best music in the gaming industry!

[@catsvsbats5257]

I have just bought all Ys' games from Steam, no regrets

[@tranngoctuan8525]

Some? Not all? I can see you're not being honest here good sir.

[@UltrosTako]

Excellent interview. Toshihiro Kondo is the real deal!

[@Highwind452]

Preordered the collectors edition of Ys VIII from the Nisa store! I feel so passionate about Falcom...they have that jrpg golden era vibe about them.

[@SolidSmiech]

Very pleased to see that you managed to get a full interview with Kondo-san! Great work as always, Ben, this was an especially enjoyable interview to watch. I recently got to talk a fair bit with him myself at AX during an autograph signing, as well as attended one of the panels he held for Ys 8. Kondo's the real deal, man,;such a nice and straight-forward kind of guy. Being at the very top of Falcom as its president, you'd think he'd be a lot more conservative and in it for the business side of things, but he never made it seem that way at all with the kind of honesty and surprisingly cheeky humor he treated his fans with. It' was his first time in the US as well; I hope he continues to come by in the future!

[@Akabane011]

And that my friend is why they still make godlike games nowadays.

[@GurenSan]

Cool interview. It really shows how humble and cool the guys of Nihon Falcom are. It really makes me wish that their work got more recognized.

[@nagihoko]

Never heard of Nihon Falcom before this. I've heard of their games (I have a friend who keeps trying to get me to play Trails in the Sky series), but not the company. Even still, it was a really interesting and engaging interview. Great moves, keep it up.

[@MrYuntu]

This was a great interview! If I wouldn´t already heard his statement on Ao/Zero for the west I would´ve wished that would have been a question you ask, but he already said they wanna bring them over somehow if possible.

[@charoleawood]

You are so good at this Ben!! You have an impressive ability to engage those you interview. I had fun watching this even though I've never even played a Nihon Falcom game :)

[@PowerfulMint]

11:15 I'll never not be impressed with how intricate the worldbuilding for the Trails series is and how the overarching story has been already planned out.

[@ElDaumo]

i love how you (and everybody else on the allies) combines professionalism and passion in a way that never feels fake and really distinguishes you from other outlets out there!

[@dragonbeast6934]

This was awesome Ben. Thank you for this. I'm really looking forward to this game.

[@GOOBENsticks]

Even if I'm not familiar with this company or its games, I really enjoy these interviews.

[@weeaboofish174]

awesome, falcom is my favourite game developer. All of their games have so much passion put into them and the legend of the heroes is actually my favourite game series of all time. Hopefully the rest of the games get released over here.

[@circafan7142]

Awesome interview Ben! Perfect timing too since I just got into Trails of Cold Steel recently per your recommendations in the past!

[@guruthosamarthruin4459]

The quality of their games, combined with how passionate, open, and free they are with their IPs, not only makes me want to buy their products, it actually makes me want to go out of my way to give them money. Also, can't wait for Cold Steel 3 & 4!

[@Josh-is-Lost93]

Great interview Ben, never heard of Ys but now I wanna get it. This president seems really passionate

[@daviddorsey6460]

Great Interview! On another note: thanks for recommending Trails in the Sky on your streams. I'm about halfway through FC and I'm loving it.

[@OmegaMetroid93]

One of my favourite companies, making two of my favourite franchises of all time, Ys and Trails. Especially Trails. I just wish it was a bit more well known so we didn't have to wonder whether they would be localized.

[@teckleedeyi]

Thank you so much for conducting this interview and for preparing really well thought out questions from both fans and yourself, great production quality content and thanks for asking the qns i wanted to know most about ys - using the old formula of difficulty that I truly enjoyed

[@Metoollhead]

Fantastic interview, you got yourselves a subscriber. Especially nice to hear about the potential comeback of the hardcore style Ys games.

[@luisalves1706]

50 years old man and Nihon Falcom fan. Thanks to ys my english is good. Thank you Nihon Falcom.

[@mikebart70]

thank you so much to all the allies and specially Ben for this awesome interview!

[@MarkusAxunIllianus]

Superb! Thank you both, Ben and Toshihiro Kondo, for this perspective and for your hard work in general!

[@krimzonstriker7534]

You guys rock! Thanks so much for securing this interview for all us english fans :D

[@mattlandry]

Great interview. Both Kondo and the translator were great! Very interesting about the Japanese audio too. I never knew there were additional fees to use in in the west!

[@knightblazer4060]

Ben... Thank you for this.

[@wenchwoggYT]

This was an amazing interview. Great job Ben!

[@XxILikePie03]

Woah, that 2009 music policy. No wonder I recognize so many Falcom tracks even while being on a long hiatus from single player games.

[@everlastilngsilver9086]

Please, do more of these.

[@iamakii]

Great interview! Love all Falcom games, especially the Ys and Trails series.

[@emperorznb]

Fantastic interview Ben. I need to pick up the Trails games on Steam soon

[@VGJunky]

Great interview, asked questions that I've never seen come up anywhere else and surprisingly got answers

[@prudentComments]

Great Interview. Thanks Ben and Easy Allies!

[@hsapin]

Awesome interview, the production value is top notch!

[@MrYodadrinkingsoda]

The Dragon of Iowa

[@maxmillermakesmusic]

great convo - what an interesting life he has had!!

[@CaptainNatron]

So looking forward to Ys VIII, can't wait. Great interview!

[@AssaulteedOne]

I wonder what the possibility of seeing their less known works coming to PC is - I'd love to see their older titles ported over to PC, as well as their PSP exclusive titles ported over too (Brandish: The Dark Revenant, Nayuta no Kiseki, etc.).

That was a great interview, Ben. Nice jacket Ben

[@NoonDragoon]

Cool interview! Good job Ben!

[@TotemoGaijin]

Whoa, what?! Kondo?! That's a hell of a get, Ben! I'm proud of you!

[@TotemoGaijin]

How the hell did I miss Ben gathering questions for this interview? Was it on the Patreon site? Now I'm super bummed I missed my chance...

[@MonsterMJ]

amazing interview from Ben san

[@evanemshwiller5412]

Great interview with an incredible Dev.

[@odinj647]

hey ben, nice jacket! Also shit I have to get into the Ys series, looks like a lotta fun

[@TheOneLastSpartan]

I truly love Easy A, Ben is my gaming hero, I would love to meet the people he has interviewed.

[@BeowulfCav]

THANK YOU BEN, This was so cool! I can't wait for YsVIII and only wish it came on the Switch too. But I'm still stoked as hell it's coming on PC next month. It's like a dream come true. I'm still sitting on Trails in the Sky on my Steam backlog. It seems so daunting to take up such a narrative heavy long RPG these days. I'll get to it some day... >_> Played all the Ys games except Celcetta though.

[@herunumen]

I really liked the interview, i hope that easy allies gets to interview more personalities. Also Ben is getting better and better at moderating and interviewing, just wanted to show my support. :)

[@danielpastor1153]

Great Interview! Keep them coming plz!!

[@Velrikk]

Ben's Interviews are the best, that Suda 51 and Kodaka interview is the best imo

[@alacer807]

huh. I've never played a falcom game, but this interview sold me. gonna have to check out trails and Ys now.

[@alacer807]

Fazuzu thanks! I'll probably do that. Didn't Ben also have high praise for origin in particular?

[@IsraelLlerena]

Such a great interview!

[@gramsci1094]

Great interview Ben and what an amazing company with a passionate, professional president, it's rare to see that kind of dedication to the craft and too its consumers!

[@iXiClub]

Great job Ben, solid interview! Nice editing on the video too. -Julian/FUNKNOWN

[@JacobOlli]

I tried the demo, and the gameplay is fantastic. And it is the first Ys game i have tried, looking forward to the full release.

[@generalwoofles6240]

Great interview Ben. After listening to this guy I'm going to check out these games. Look like some solid RPG's.

[@baicaibangx]

Falcom, very interesting video game company. Been around there for 20 years but didn't expand their company, like, at all, just doing their own things. I remember long ago some people has a term of "The big four RPG franchises in Japan", with YS being one of them (the other 3 are FF, DQ and Zelda, though YS didn't quite keep up with the other 3). Their trails series has become much more popular in Japan and Asia market. Sora no kiseki was amazing series, though too bad Zero and Ao were released on PSP only, and at the time PSP was basically dead in the west so they didn't get localized. Best hope for Zero and Ao in English are through steam, the publisher for Zero and Ao on PC (later ported) in China has recently released them on steam, and is [considering] to translate Zero and Ao to English by player's request. Hope it could happen before cold steel 3 get localized in the west, as it will be heavily related to Zero and Ao in story.

[@RengaBeats]

great interview!! thank you Ben!

[@Gricuit]

Amazing interview Ben. Continue the awesome work. Toshihiro Kondo seems like a great president for Nihon Falcom.

[@anonysalt]

Hey EZA, do you have a raw version of the interview where Kondo wasn't dubbed over? And were Ben's questions being translated verbally as well? Seems like there's content here that hasn't been discussed in JP yet and I'd like to share with some acquaintances. Also, where and when was this brilliant interview?

[@hanzmedina7]

awesome interview

[@YhelloWish]

Holy shit I love the free music policy I love Nihon Falcom!

[@garion333]

Well done interview.

[@KampaiSanta1999]

Sen No Kiseki 1 & 2 are one of the greats. Can't wait for the 3rd one coming out later this year.

[@arturwarkentin7399]

Great Interview, hope to see more of Falcom games in the West since the won me totally over with with Trails of Cold Steele as well as Ys VIII

[@ShimaS-0079]

huge fan of Falcom since ens of laat year. i own cold steel 1 and 2 brand new and will buy again when it drops on steam. and i also need to grab trails in the sky. i wonder do they sell ost for the games

[@timidalchemist8475]

Shima Shimanoseki they do in fact kondo said they have about 500 albums.

[@easyduster]

This man is a good man.

[@truthdog1107]

Hey Ben, cool jacket!!!

[@knightblazer4060]

Ben always has the best jackets

[@truthdog1107]

If anyone knows about jackets it'd be Knight BLAZER.

[@knightblazer4060]

Damn right.

[@Thuxo]

Oh thank you so much. This was amazing. Also, am surprised to hear they'd planned out everything for Trails for before they even started Sky. Jesus.

[@evil_cupcake2386]

Nihon Falcom is one of the best developer ever, in my opinion. Their games may be not that great like FF7, but I personally like The Legend of Heroes more than ANY Final Fantasy game. Falcom's games are just so good and charming, that you just dive in to them and don't quit until you done it. The only thing I want from them right now is English versions of Zero no Kiseki, Ao no Kiseki and Trails of Cold Steel 3, and I don't care when they will come out or what games will come out with them, for me this games will be GOTY.

[@ikagura]

Zloy_dedulya FF7 is too easy as a RPG when you know about the best materia combination

[@dillvinosonnevee3111]

Yeah don't say there games aren't as good as ff7 there games are better then ff7 period. ff7 isn't a good rpg it made a stamp in history and is popular yes but thats it, it aged poorly and does not have a interesting and rich universe like trails matter in fact u can't even compare the two because they are too grand in difference.

[@davidk.8686]

Nice! But can somebody explain to me how anybody can actually give a thumbs down on these type of videos. You like Falcom, JRPG's or game development in general this video is unexpected content, a rare original/FIrst Hand source of information/insight/stories of a japanese developer. No obvious PR-Crap/Spin, just a good conversation ... This is just perfect bonus-content. So 4 people cared enough to watch this and leave a feedback and find it more negative than positive? ... I can be a miserable person at times, but those guys. Wow.

[@SirCaco]

I love Ys! Thank you Kondo-san and Falcom for the great times!

[@SoccyRS]

What a strange timing for this to pop out on my subscription feed. I just bought Tokyo Xanadu. I should totally finish Trials of Cold Steel tho, P5 kinda got in the one of that one.

[@dannybski9620]

I've been buying all these games (at least, the turn based ones).., now I just need time to find the time to play them xD

[@tenguusoldier]

How did you guys go about finding a guy to work as an interpreter? this interview was really cool.

[@Ninjastoned]

Kondo-san has such a lovely English voice

[@stevenewhen]

This guy has a legendary story. Now... Bring all Legendary Heroes to the west...

[@Qmanklozmo]

awesome job Ben, you da best

[@ned993]

Falcom is one of the best game developers out there. ❤

[@kactuso]

10/10 interview.

[@jzblue345]

Falcom makes the best games period

[@OtakuUnderground92]

I have never heard of this company.

[@timidalchemist8475]

TheNegroShoddy nobody has,it wasn't until 2011 through 2016 xseed has localized each games by falcon for a couple years and lately falcom has been eagerly waiting for western feedback on their games.

[@baicaibangx]

TheNegroShoddy funny thing is falcom is one of the oldest Japan video game companies that's still around, but they didn't expand or grow the company much in the past 20 years… they are just there doing their own thing. I heard their company size is still only about 50 people. They were focusing their games on PC for a long time (back from DOS time) until they moved some of their games to PSP and got huge success (relatively but enough for them), and then they focus on console and became sort of a Sony's "second party", release all their new games on PS platform.

[@mattlandry]

This is an amazing idea for an interview! Fuck yes Ben!

[@sloppyjimboxiuxiu]

Nice jacket Ben.

[@Killingston42]

This developer looks like he loves his job

[@164dragonmaster]

incredible review! i love the trail games and i cant wait for cold steel 3

[@quanticprophecy]

Were you shipped to Japan or was he chilling in L.A for a while?

[@easyduster]

He went to LA for Anime Expo

[@Norutama97]

sooo ben,have you finished your trails in the sky playthrough yet?

[@Nevierrr]

Everyone should be playing their games, seriously.. especially Trails :)

[@dmtgallardo]

It was a great interview but OH BOY THAT JACKET!!

[@robaustin_]

This is the best translator I've ever seen/heard

[@hsapin]

Can't wait for Trails of Cold Steel PC!!!

[@yogurtsapien8483]

Came for the interview, stayed for the jacket. L&R

[@harry00boyon]

THANK YOU THANK YOU AWESOME

[@alternativefacts3050]

What a great forward thinking modern philosophy and attitude to their music rights. Oh and they own the music that's in their own games. That's really smart. Right Square? Right? It's a pretty cool idea right? *STARES WITH DEAD EYES AT DRAGON QUEST XI* ....Right Square?.... ...Righhhhhttttt?....

[@Gkok]

You need to interview the president of Atlus, a company that doesn't bring their games on PC. It's the opposite of Falcon on that. We need to know why Atlus doesn't give PC gamers the chance to enjoy Personas and other Shin Megami Tensei titles on PC.

[@thelazywanderer_jt]

And why they're so keen on cynical characters that are all "insane".